Tag: Brand Building

Cute? Writing an 80,000 word book and shoving it out there for the world to ridicule is cute?

*Inwardly screams in frustration

Being an author is so much more than that. It is a lifestyle and a career. Most importantly it is a lot of work. Writing the book was the easy part.

I enjoy what I am doing. I really do. I’ve met a lot of kind people, and I’m beginning to learn who I am as a person and who I don’t want to be. It’s all because I am building my author brand.

There are some days that I honestly feel like am getting nowhere. But at the end of the day I realize that I have gotten farther than I ever could have dreamed I would have.

My mind 24 hours a day is thinking about my author brand. It does not matter what I am doing.

Building your author brand begins with getting yourself out there. That means social media. Now don’t go crazy but be you. As I tell myself Building a brand around a fake you is not building a brand around you. Likely what I’m meaning is don’t let some mongrel wreck your self-esteem.

For example I’m on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube under Author Brooke Myers/ brookemyersauthor.

Instead of using a personal account I use these to express my own unique personality through my author brand.

The next thing to do is find something to identify with. Something that makes people think of you. For example I write about monsters, but I have purpose. Monsters are the object that sort of shows what my brand is. It’s how people identify me as an author. I’m the girl who writes about monsters.

As an author you need to continue to create new books to keep your readers happy but you also need to create content to keep people engaged.

On YouTube I talk about my writing experience and I also do makeup videos. It’s an easy way to make your content “real”. People want to know you are an actual person.

Another thing about building your brand is to be consistent and come up with new content. Also show gratitude. You may like to be rude in real life, BUT a simple thank you goes a long way. It tells your followers that they are important to you and without them you would not be where you are.

Now there are some things to avoid. Don’t waste people’s time. If someone asks you about your book, you need to be ready. Have a pitch and show them that you are serious and that you know your book. I mean you did write it!

Don’t get discouraged. Rome or anywhere wasn’t built in a day. It all takes time. It’s frustrating to feel like it all is going at a snail’s pace. But building an author brand can take years upon years. It’s about dedication. If you truly love what you are doing, you won’t give up, no matter how much you want to.

The name of one of the panels I spoke on over the weekend seems fitting for discussion.

Who am I? What is my brand? What thing do I identify myself with? How do you build an author brand? Do you even know what you are doing?

The answer is simple: I have no idea.

Logically I am learning as I go.

It may seem amateurish to admit that my mind is blown by marketing and all this technological use that comes with being an author and building an author brand. Really that does not bother me. I’ve always been a little strange and I’ve been able to incorporate that into my brand building.

What’s the use of building around yourself when you’re not really being yourself? The answer to that is, it’s completely useless. Being fake, is just an asshole ploy to try to teach people you’re this perfect little ball of writerly perfection. I tried that, made a fool of myself and have shucked out the parachute to land on Plan B. Take my advice, actually build a brand around yourself, the real you. The world needs more creatives, not more fakers.

If you’ve got a weird quirk, go with it. WE ALL HAVE THEM. I have more than I care to list, but that’s besides the point. Getting back on point, building a brand.

Okay, I have no idea what I’m doing but it’s working out for me so. Honestly I think that is the reality of building your own brand. None of us know what we are doing. Most of us if not all of us started from scratch, had to get our names out there, go to events, do things we maybe didn’t want to do. Even though that may be true, we all have different paths. Individually we have to find what works for us.

So when building the brand of you:

Be Yourself

Accept the fact that you are learning as you go

Be open to meeting new people

Find something to identify with, to build you brand around, to make yourself noticeable (maybe a certain hairstyle, costume/outfit, a persona, or an object/ thing, characterization) For example: I write about monsters, so everyone thinks of me as monster girl. The girl who writes about monsters.

Market till the site of ads will make you want to throw a book at someone ( pun intended)

Biography

Brooke Myers is young author from Southern Indiana. Myers writes mystery and suspense. She is on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/brookemyersauthor/. Myers is also on instagram at https://www.instagram.com/brookemyersauthor/ Follow along with Brooke’s journey as she navigates the author world in her early career.